The Dawn of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag

Share.

It’s a pirate’s life for the Kenway family.

By Richard George

Assassin’s Creed seems to enjoy operating without limits. The franchise has always dreamed big and attempted to deliver even bigger, and if the series has one blatant weakness, it’s that its annual ambitions exceed what consoles are realistically able to produce. Its grand designs have left modern hardware behind, and the series remains shackled - alongside a few lingering design shortcomings that continue to appear. Yet as one of the most compelling modern franchise concepts, it’s hard not to be excited by whatever new era Ubisoft’s global studios are able to conjure up. The question, then, becomes this: can the Assassin’s Creed franchise balance its desire to move into yet another new era with its need to acknowledge its inherent strengths and weaknesses? After five installments, is ambition enough to keep this modern blockbuster relevant as we begin to move into a new generation of technology?

In the case of Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, those ambitious designs have moved prior to the American Revolution, to the earlier half of the 18th century, off the east coast of Northern America where piracy thrives. It is in this era that we’ll meet Edward Kenway, father of Haytham and grandfather of Connor, - clearly signifying the pursuit of what Ubisoft is calling the “Kenway saga” of Assassin’s Creed games. Where Haytham and Connor were present at the dawn of a new democracy, Edward will be tested by the failure of the old one.

Edward himself seems designed, or at least destined, to stand as an answer or a contrast to Connor, which should please critics of the Assassin’s Creed III protagonist. While Connor was more firm, more stoic, more serious, lacking some of the vibrancy of his predecessors, Edward is intended to be more charming, clever and reckless. In fact, when Black Flag starts, Edward is already a pirate, one who is destined to encounter the assassins’ order.

Black Flag director Ashraf Ismail stressed that his global team was focusing on placing Edward into a more historically accurate take on this era – no parrots, no Krakens, no theme park shine. Clearly the team is aware that Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean series has defined much of the fictional narrative surrounding pirates, and it wants to change that image and style. It wants to be grittier, more true to the dark, rough reality of the era. Ismail references Kurt Sutter’s twisted, gritty, grounded television show “Sons of Anarchy” a few times when describing his vision for a cast of characters that encompasses Charles Vane, Calico Jack, Blackbeard and more. That’s a bold claim for any medium and any time period.

Ismail’s Montreal-based team, in conjunction with studios from Singapore, Sofia, Annecy, Kiev, Quebec City, Bucharest and Montpellier, is working towards building what he describes as the “first true naval overworld.” Fans of The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker might technically beg to disagree, but nonetheless the ambition is well-founded. Black Flag aims to blend between its land and aquatic experiences seamlessly, to the point where Edward can simply dive off of his ship, swim to the shore of one of 50 or so locations in the Carribbean, and explore. No loading. No segmented feeling. Ubisoft also plans for a great deal of variety in these locales as well, ranging from plantations and jungles to Mayan ruins and exotic coconut islands. All of this joins content hosted in three major cities – Havana (described as analogous to ACII’s Venice in terms of vertical emphasis), Nassau (the home of the so-called Republic of Pirates) and Kingston (a very dangerous, British-run city). Collectively the land-based portions of the game will comprise about 60% of Black Flag's core missions.

Of course, a vast expanse, even one filled with locations, means nothing if a game’s inherent gameplay ideas – upgrade systems, experience points, combat, exploration – don’t work. In this sense, faced with such a massive game, it’s a bit reassuring that many of the developers from the acclaimed Far Cry 3 have joined in with the Black Flag crew. Some are working on sea-based gameplay. Others are working on the core progression of Edward’s abilities. Ismail stressed to IGN repeatedly that all of the game’s activities, from hunting and harpooning (water-based hunting) to exploring underwater environments, will feed into a larger sense of progression and evolution of play. As with past AC games, Edward can upgrade his equipment in a variety of ways, but Ubisoft is now adding the ability to do the same with his ship, the Jackdaw, and its crew.

With the bold claim that Assassin’s Creed III was just testing the (forgive us) water in terms of naval combat, Ismail’s team intends to make Black Flag’s ocean-based warfare deeper and more complex than before, adding more weapon types, enemies, and challenges. These ideas stack onto an already fundamentally sound core, which for many was a highlight of ACIII. Calling back to Far Cry 3, Edward uses a spyglass to view ships and islands from a distance, which communicates valuable information on a destination or foe prior to any sort of engagement. Players will also be able to exploit weather patterns, luring the opposition into less than ideal conditions such as dynamic storms, to their advantage.

Of course, naval warfare doesn’t just end on the high seas. You’ll board your enemy’s ship, and Black Flag will offer a variety of options when it comes to this type of confrontation. Your goal with any ship-to-ship fight is to eliminate the other captain. How you do this is entirely up to you. Edward could simply grab hold of a swivel gun on his ship, firing the small cannon at his counterpart. He could use one of his (up to four, depending on your upgrades) pistols to simply fire a bullet at the foe’s head. Alternatively, Edward could risk boarding the other ship in a variety of ways, leaping from mast-to-mast and performing an air assassination, or charging into the fray, intending to cut down his foe with his sword.

Fixing the Past and Present

That kind of flexibility lends itself to the entire mission philosophy for Black Flag. Ubisoft wants to remove some of the barriers that previous games created, leaning more on open-ended directives, something that lends itself more towards the (comparatively) simple assassination orders from the first AC game. Ismail described his approach as being less about hand-holding and more about providing basic objectives with flexible conditions for satisfying said objectives, which also includes refining game systems for things like detection and stealth, so players better understand how the game "reads" their actions.

The entirety of Black Flag’s development could be characterized by that self-awareness and franchise-centric reflection. When we asked if the team had taken a look at how it paces its story and mission structure, Ismail noted that his team has, from the start, been focused on building mechanics within the pirate theme that the story then supports – not the other way around. The same applies to the franchise’s tendency to rely on excessive mechanics that continue to stack year after year – some that seemingly exist just for the sake of having something new. It’s here that the Black Flag team is placing a discerning eye, because any system the game doesn’t need is being discarded.

The best example of this comes with the series' familiar notoriety system. Previous games would base enemy interaction on how discreet or blatant you were in terms of city navigation and combat. Kill someone in direct sight of the city guard, for example, and you’d quickly find yourself wanted by the authorities. In Black Flag, this system has been tossed out, as navigating the wide ocean and traveling from location to location makes this sort of “worldwide alert” illogical. Regardless of this game’s ability to deliver on its larger vision, the fact that this latest AC team understands some of the flaws of previous entries is entirely reassuring.

Another stumbling point of the AC franchise: the modern storyline. Though an afterthought in the minds of many, the Assassin’s Creed saga focuses a great deal on the contemporary conflict between Assassins and Templars. Until ACIII, that part of the storyline was told through Desmond Miles. With Desmond’s story concluded, Ubisoft was left searching for another way to continue the tale in 2013. It’s doing this by making you, the player, part of the narrative. Though details were purposefully left vague, you are a person hired by Templar-controlled Abstergo Entertainment to research a pivotal moment in Desmond’s ancestry. You’re told to look into Edward Kenway – and away you go.

Ubisoft is attempting to find the delicate balance between the game’s Caribbean setting – where the bulk of the game takes place – and its modern counterpart, where a significant amount of lore is held. The team hopes that it can incentivize hardcore Assassin’s Creed fans to step outside the world of pirates and explore the Abstergo facility, by providing a variety of unnamed activities and information as a means of reward.

Bring Me That Horizon

Assassin’s Creed has long had grand ambitions, but those same narrative and game design risks have sometimes proven the series’ greatest weakness. Those bold desires, combined with the speed at which AC iterations are released, has resulted in a variety of flaws that have remained for years. But now, as this sixth installment begins to make the transition between the existing generation (Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Wii U, PC) and the next (so far PlayStation 4 is confirmed), Ubisoft’s designs seem to be getting a new lease on life – a new freedom to think bigger than ever.

Black Flag, if Ubisoft’s intentions come to life, seems poised to address some of those problems. The team seems genuinely interested in not only providing a new, naval-based, open world experience, but finding a better lead character, and fixing some of the faulty missions and gameplay systems from the past. There is plenty more to learn about the game, and plenty to play, but if nothing else, it’s genuinely exciting to see Assassin’s Creed head in this direction. It’s different. It’s unexpected. But the series must take risks and remain self-aware to remain fresh and relevant as an annual franchise. All indications point to Ubisoft taking these exact steps, and much like the limitless horizon of the ocean, the result full of possibility and potential.

Rich is an Executive Editor of IGN.com and the leader of IGN's Nintendo team. He also watches over all things WWE, Resident Evil, Assassin's Creed and much more. Follow Rich on Twitter, if you dare!